Forever
by Twilight Hours
Summary: Dean goes to Lisa and Ben and tries to keep his promise. Post S5


200 Themes by Werewolf's One, this time it's _198. Acceptance_.  
There's a lot that happened on the season 5 finale, and I can't even begin to cover it, but I wrote this up anyways. It's messy and unorganized and doesn't have any sort of climax or real conclusion, but I think sometimes we (I) need a little rambling in our lives. If that's the sort of stuff you like, go on ahead, and interpret it however you want.

* * *

Dean thinks promises are the most violent causes of death.

He arrives to this conclusion the day after he arrives at Lisa's, somehow where he's supposed to be and completely lost all at once.

He allows the resolution to drift about in his mind for a few minutes before moving on to another topic.

He's sitting on the hood of the Impala, looking out towards the rest of the neighborhood. Alone, shallowly, since Lisa's gone to drop Ben off at practice and won't be back 'til she does some more errands. Probably to let Dean think, calm down, relax. That leaves Dean sitting outside in the heat of May with half a bottle of chilled beer and hot jeans. It's bright. Everything is saturated, blues and greens and vacant driveways. His car is a black eye in this community, but he knows the scars hidden beneath the suburban lawns and it makes him settle a little more on the simmering frame. He reflects on how such an empty, quiet place can still seem so cheerful. The thought would be extended to the entire world, but he's not that stupid and much too tired to think about it.

A jet plane roars, birds chirp awkwardly, and Dean wonders why he's here.

His body wants to move, get up, do something, but he finds himself a heavy weight on the Impala, helpless to even bring his beer up or his hand down from where it's scratching at his head. As his fingers pick at the short but growing strands of hair, he contemplates his past self, one that would never stay still, and compares it with the sluggish state he's been in for over two years. Five years, if he wants to be picky. He doesn't. He doesn't want to be anything.

Dean is a ghost, sitting here on his shadow of a car, not really part of the world anymore. He knows he's cut off. Soundless footsteps meander around Lisa's house and yard and life, haunting her days and doorways. He's passing through walls and windows to find some place to tie himself down to, some area his spirit can attach itself, but the car is the only object on earth he's drawn towards and he realizes it wasn't the car he kept coming back to.

He reconsiders. Because someday, there's going to be a day where he dies and isn't brought back, and he'll probably choose that day to come back anyway because there's nowhere else to go and violent deaths make violent spirits that can't move on. His mind is brought back to that earlier point of promises and there's no doubt in his mind that he would be a vengeful spirit after an eternity of needing what he can't have, and what does that make a violent_ life_? Where does that put a life of violence? Where does that put Dean?

He can't possibly look for those answers. It's too early and too late and he's too tired, just too tired. He feels a little less heavy, just for a second, and that's enough to stop yanking on his hair and swallow another mouthful and get off the Impala. He decides he'd rather be in it. But he can't decide which side of the car to get in, and he stands with his knees against the front bumper while his eyes slide from side to side before he declares this all too much, ridiculously and hopelessly, and after five minutes he promptly turns around and goes inside.

The sun glaring off the Impala leaves spots of light on the garage door. A dog whines two doors away.

Dean leaves a short note explaining his temporary absence.

He winds up in the passenger seat for reasons only known to him before sliding over to the wheel. Inside, it's unbearably hot, and the stuffiness is making him sweat. The denim pants are thick, but he's wearing a thin, short-sleeved t-shirt. His leather jacket is on the floor in the back.

He drives down any road that'll carry him. More often than not he's the sole car on the road, and he alternates between turning the radio on to a whisper and turning it off for miles at a time. After most of the sweat is dried from the wind coming through the open windows, he sticks in a Led Zeppelin tape. _IV_, he realizes about half way in, but he doesn't stop it. Only when the first chords of _Going to California_ are heard does he take the tape out, his throat constricted and chest burning.

Pulling over before he drives too far to turn back around, Dean eases the Impala to a halt in the dying grass under his tires. Fumbles with the door handle. Gives up, shifts over to the passenger side. He turns himself awkwardly so he's facing the seat, and rests his forehead against the worn leather. He breaths in the familiar scent and presses himself further into the material, but he knows he can't get any closer. Because he isn't allowed to. He promised.

Times moves too slowly, he thinks. He feels as if he's moving normal speed through a world that's going slow motion just for the sake of making him live forever. Making him live out his decisions and second-guess every single choice he made, every single action he took.

The sky is lapsing into nautical twilight before Dean takes his face off the cushion and edges back to the driver's side. He doesn't remember falling asleep, but he drives back with half of his face red, thinking over his dreams. He doesn't turn the music back on.

He can't bring himself to smile when Lisa stands at the door while he pulls into the driveway, because he figures he's spent enough of his life lying. But when she asks him if he's okay, he thinks about how much good the truth did for him, so he doesn't answer. By the time he makes it through the doorway, he realizes that silence never got him that far either. Noticing that Lisa's watching him stand there, caught up in his indecision, Dean walks into the kitchen. He thinks about asking how Ben's practice went, how her day was, and wonders if that's how he's supposed to start.

His thought process gets stuck on that. Starting. Possibly starting over. He considers the idea, turning it over and letting it sit in his mind for a while. He thinks about if he might have wanted it before, if he should be wanting it now. He's not sure if he's capable of it. Just as soon as doubt is brought up into his mind, the absurdity of basing his whole life on a few questions hits him, and a conversation starts up in the cozy room. It's quiet and awkward, but his voice is smoother than he believed it to be and he finds that he's interested in what Lisa is saying, or at least distracted, and he tells himself that he doesn't have to let go of everything just to talk to someone he's living with. It comforts him a little.

Lisa turns to go to bed thirty minutes after the streetlights turn on. She begins to ask _do you want- _but stops, either because he slept on the couch the first night or because she's starting to figure out that he doesn't really want anything. He says _Goodnight, Lisa._

The streetlight sputters. Dean sits in the kitchen, looking out the window, before popping his back and relocating. He finds himself outside, under the red beam of the lamp, wondering who decides red is a good color for a streetlight. Everything is bathed in crimson, and it makes him want to squeeze his eyes shut and stop thinking.

It's warm, but he has goosebumps.

Aside from the blushed spots of the neighborhood, everything is dark, an ominous shadow blanketing his side of the world. It could be the true world, but Dean's had enough experience to know that isn't the correct answer; nothing is just black and white. Not anymore. The Impala, obsidian with streaks of carmine, fits right in. Dean doesn't.

Sighing, he returns to the house, leaving his thoughts behind for the night. The chill stays with him, however, and he couldn't shake the feeling that he missed something. He almost laughed at the irony of it.

He doesn't wake up with the dawn; he watches it happen in slow motion, like everything else. He's uncertain if he slept, instead spending the night staring at the ceiling and walls, counting the seconds go by. It lasted for an eternity, and Dean doesn't think he can stand another night let alone the rest of forever. He wouldn't know what to do when the time comes where he breaks open completely, if he hasn't already. He thinks he has. What happens after that? What happens after forever?

Dean pushes the questions aside, because he doesn't have any intent on answering them today, and rises up from the couch with the intention of being productive.

That intention in mind, he says hello and goodbye to Lisa and Ben and sets off in his car that doesn't blend in anymore. The drive is aimless at first, a slow trek around the town, until he stops for coffee. Somehow a Starbucks vanilla latte is pushed into his hands, and as he's drinking the sweet thing, he buys two Death Cab for Cutie albums. He almost throws them out the window after telling himself to keep them, because he forgot he wasn't supposed to be waiting, but holds on to them anyways. Sticking one into the player, he listens to the quiet, keening laments, and decides he likes it. He stops the car next to a park and gazes out at the children and parents, not really feeling anything, while the Impala hums out a dirge of its own. The last lines of the tenth track wail out and he turns it off abruptly, jamming the CD back into the case and discarding it in the box under his seat. He puts in a Bob Dylan tape instead.

He snags a job at the mechanic's. Just drives in and asks. The guy says Dean's really lucky to get it right away, what with the recession and all. Dean wants to cry.

He takes it, anyways, and spends the rest of the day there working on rebuild projects and tinkering with air conditioners. He wants to feel a little less guilty about staying with Lisa, and the job helps. It doesn't erase the guilt that matters, but it takes his mind off things for a while.

It gets a little better after that, he believes. He spends more time in the shower, reminiscing, even though he knows it won't get him any closer to what he had. He overhears Lisa joking to Ben about how he is turning into a girl, and Dean doesn't mind. He made the same jokes a lifetime ago.

Days pass, not any faster, but they become a tiny bit more bearable. Dean's not sure when it started, but somewhere between buying the Death Cab albums and sitting on the steps eating lunch, he lets a little acceptance to come through in the form of imaginary conversations and reactions from the person that's no longer beside him. He plays Bob Dylan and allows himself to hear a snort and a _since when do you listen to this kind of stuff _and he almost huffs indignantly. Still-muscled arms work on an engine and the sound of a beer opening is heard from behind, accompanying the remark of whether or not he should take one of his new girly showers and if Lisa would rather have grease everywhere or cold water. He almost bites his tongue from that, but keeps working. Even as he sits on the car on his days off, nagging and small talk wafts through the summer heat. He's teased for brooding, even though he's the only one there.

He doesn't think as much. Questions still inflict his train of thought every now and then, about what it would be like to actually let go, but Dean solves those easily by coming up with analogies of drowning. The usually talkative voice stays silent during those question-answer sessions, so he replaces them with taking Ben to the park. He doesn't worry when he loses sight of the kid.

Some days Dean can't help but think about how he's only some sort of extended metaphor, a symbolic, modernistic existence that floats around the sunny town to show the others some sort of lesson. He figures that's one of the few reasons keeping him around.

He doesn't talk much on those types of days, and neither does the empty passenger's seat next to him. The few comments that are said are confusing things like _I'm still here _and _we're both drowning _and _let me drive,_ to which Dean replies with a solid _shut up. _He often hears faint singing whether or not he has music on, but he can't tell if it's Death Cab or Dylan or Zeppelin. Doesn't bother to ask, just listens. Sometimes, it turns out he's the one singing, though he rarely ever notices.

Dean's sitting alone at the kitchen table drinking whiskey when he wonders if this is what heartbreak feels like.

The liquid fire burns his throat, and Lisa and Ben are at a friend's party. The sun is starting to lower, setting everything ablaze, and trees thrash outside violently from the wind. It's as if a beautiful, harmless Armageddon is taking place a few feet away from his seat inside. He briefly wants to go out and join it, to be torn apart by the winds and set on fire by the dying sunlight, if only for the evening. He takes another drink, imagining how sound is cut off so easily by a window pane, how quiet the kitchen is.

Dean might have said he has never fallen in love, but he knows now he was lying; heartbreak can't be possible without love first. He can't hold his alcohol at all today, and he's only on his second glass. A rushed puff of air escapes chapped lips, and he thinks about how weakness and strength was never judged on something as simple as alcohol tolerance. He contemplates the complete lack of presence around him, and reflects to the emptiness on how a little over a month ago someone would have cared enough to give him a black eye. Dean can't possibly earn that reprieve now, but he's still trying. He would like to think he's trying. But half the time, he knows he's kidding himself.

His glass is empty again. Lightning strikes through his chest as a reminder that he isn't dead inside, though his face is stony and his eyes are void. He can still feel, and the pain is as agonizing since he stepped through Lisa's door on the first night, but he's not sure what he would do without it. He remembers a time where covering up his grief was a fragile resolve to the extraordinary wrath residing in his core. He used to think it was always there, but now he's wondering where it went. If it will come back. Dean figures that when it does, he'd be hundreds of miles away from this house, but he doesn't dare think any farther than that. He realizes now how easy it is to break, even though he doesn't have anyone around to push him there anymore. At least not physically, because even now there's a pressure on his heart caused by a phantom and he wills himself not to shatter, not here, not now.

He pours another drink, and the sky lights up like a holocaust.

Dean sleeps with Lisa now. He's not entirely sure when he moved from the couch, but he guesses it might have been the day he emptied out a whole bottle of tequila. He doesn't bother asking, though, and Lisa doesn't say anything about it, just waits for him to get in. Most nights, when he comes up with conversations to fill the whole day, he doesn't dream; Lisa remains a little cheerful, and it's not bliss, but he never thrashes or screams. Not in the house. The nights he does dream, he knows, because Lisa is sober if not morose and he sometimes hears her repeating what he might have said while in his unconscious throws of grief, like _a week and four days, _stated as if it's a question he should answer. If he were honest with himself, he would say he'd shove glass down his throat first, instead of just telling her he'd rather not talk about it. He's a little proud he managed to say anything at all, so he's content with leaving for work while Lisa stands in the middle of the living room, more sad than dumbstruck.

Dean drives to his job, thinking about jobs he's had and had to give up. He thinks about them as if he can still get them back, and wonders what's in his grasp that he isn't allowed to reach for. Not knowing cripples him, but research and libraries were never his thing.

The wrench is heavy and hot in his hands as he works on an old Crown Vic, and his mind considers the thought of snapping just a fragment, enough to let him bash the windows in and mutilate the frame. He can picture himself dismantling the ugly vehicle, running his dirty fingers over its corpse and corrupting the age-old innocence which is probably lost anyways, maiming and ruining what's left of the tin skeleton until his hands are covered in red rust. The scene leaves his mind as soon as it appears and he twists a bolt tighter. _Because that wouldn't be weird at all, _the retort comes sarcastic and belated.

Dean finishes the car and works on two others before stopping, and leaves with a dipping sun, a hazy orange ambiance, and an empty feeling in his gut.

He takes Ben to the park again, watches the kid easily walk up to another group and join in on their soccer game. Their forms are highlighted by the setting sun, their shadows stretching out long enough to touch Dean's face. The man watches the ball fly between legs and feet and grass and suddenly he's drowning, unable to catch his breath amidst the waves of pain and present and _life._

The orange sky could baptize him at that instant, except he would never want it. Those thin shadows condemn as they flock over his eyes, the glowing silhouettes judge; he doesn't _want _this.

He doesn't want the uncertainty, the indecision that besets him. He doesn't want the overwhelming emotion of hopelessness, the constant realization of the complete lack of control he has. He doesn't want to keep feeling like a ghost that can't touch the tangible, can't support the ones that took him in. He doesn't want a lot of things, although he's starting to comprehend that it isn't about what he wants, but what he needs, and even though he can't get what his heart throbs for, he finds something else.

It's not the concept that's new. Dean thinks so at first. He looks at Ben and then he looks at the bench he's sitting on and then he looks at his hands, wondering how he can take care of an innocent child playing soccer with strangers. He wonders how he can be a parent when he received such insufficient parenting himself, and is at a little loss that feels too huge to cover.

A revelation reminds Dean that he knows exactly what he's doing because he's done it all his life.

So no, being a father isn't a new concept to him. The discovery is what's found _him,_ and it breaks his heart - because the loss is too much, it always will be - but it's there. Lisa and Ben are there, and if they aren't depending on him, they're connecting to him, and Dean won't let that go. So he directs his diluted, age-old actions towards them, and it's not enough, but it maybe makes him feel a bit better.

_Peace or freedom?_

He hasn't thought of the question since is was first asked, and he is brought back to it with startling surety. Because it's a loaded question, isn't it? His offered choices are practically mutually exclusive, and he almost laughs at how ridiculous everything, _everything _is. He can't have the former without the latter, not really, and neither of them truly matter without the one factor that isn't even in the question. It was a question, just a question, but any answer he makes doesn't count for anything. Just a question- he wishes he could get angry, be furious at the blazing sky. A spark is felt, and it dies.

Tired eyes watch the limitless shadows until June is almost over.

He admits to being surprised when they bring up going to the Grand Canyon. For Father's Day, and they really want to, but it's still a question and it's taking everything Dean's got not to start sobbing.

Lisa and Ben ask him, hope in their eyes, and Dean wants to say no with every ounce of his being. He says yes.

It feels like betrayal, like turning his back on what might have been, and it hurts - _God _it hurts. But no one is disagreeing with him, and he can feel a smile right behind his shoulder.

It takes nearly half a lifetime to drive there. Time still goes so slow.

It's worth it, Dean realizes.

Lisa and Ben sing along in the Impala, they don't stop for hours, and sometimes Dean joins in and tries not to think about the passenger seat being occupied by Lisa's gorgeous form or sometimes Ben's. They stop at a few high-rated hotels and although he feels like a stranger, Dean doesn't dislike the feel of sharing paper-fresh sheets with a less than temporary woman and a warm child.

Then they reach Arizona, the heat practically shedding everything but their emotions. The car is sweaty and sticky and stuffy and the glare off its polished hood causes squinting glares from passersby. Everything is terribly brown and dusty, and Dean feels like he's traveling through a place that hasn't been touched in decades, and it's unbearable and beautiful.

The Canyon is another world entirely.

Dean is standing there, not even close to the edge, sandwiched between Lisa and Ben, and he doesn't know where to start looking. There's every shade of red below, every shade of blue above, and every possible color he could dream of in between. He wonders if the view is just as stunning from the bottom. A strong desire emerges, to walk all around it once, but he quells it due to the fact that he's been informed of how vast the valley is, how far it goes. It's still hard to believe. But the three of them are standing there, and at that moment all that's ahead of them is a grand, breathtaking gash in the earth that extends to the end of the world, and it makes Dean believe that maybe there's not just two other figures beside him. Maybe he can do something about the giant hole in front of him that's threatening to swallow his existence, and maybe he doesn't have to choose one or the other but what he _needs. _Maybe he doesn't have to stop waiting or stop holding on or stop hoping.

The Grand Canyon is an eternity, stretching out forever.

It's not the first time Dean has cried since he came back to Lisa and Ben, but it's the first time he's really smiled.


End file.
